This invention relates to the fields of computer systems and online documentation. More particularly, a system and methods are provided for producing a virtual online book from a compendium of electronically stored documentation.
Documentation for software and other computer-related products has traditionally been produced and delivered in hard-copy form (e.g., books, manuals). More and more frequently, however, documentation is being delivered in electronic form—as PDF (Portable Document Format), HTML (HyperText Markup Language) or other files. Unfortunately, even when possessed in electronic form, finding desired information in a large collection of product documentation, which may span multiple books, volumes, manuals, and so on, can be difficult and frustrating.
Documentation grows as a product evolves (e.g., to augment a portion dealing with an expanded feature) and often fragments as well (e.g., to pull out material for a separate book or manual on a particular topic). The documentation may, however, lose some of its cohesiveness or completeness, for example, to the point where a user does not know which of multiple books contains the information he or she seeks. Although a user may be familiar the topics addressed in one book or manual, if it was decided that a closely related topic should be addressed in a different book, the user may never become aware of the related topic.
Simply searching for specific words or phrases may return many uses of the words/phrases that are unrelated to the desired context, and may return them in an order that frustrates the user's search. For example, a user may be searching for an introductory or conceptual description of a particular command (e.g., what the command does) but the search tool may present portions of the documentation dealing with the syntax or examples instead. Further, the organization of product documentation (both hard-copy and electronic forms) may stymie a user's attempts to find conceptual information by making him or her search through several separate books or files, each of which contains conceptual information concerning different aspects of the product. And, because search tools often fail to analyze their results for relevance, a user may initially select search results leading her to sources that she is familiar with, over a source that she is not familiar with, even though the information she seeks is located in the unfamiliar source.
Efforts to make electronic or online documentation more user-friendly have involved efforts such as tagging portions of the documentation with key words or phrases (e.g., for use by a search engine) and embedding identifiers of the type of information contained in particular topics or sections of the documentation (e.g., conceptual, advanced, troubleshooting). The number of tags and identifiers that can be embedded may be limited, however, and the flexibility of searches and comprehensiveness of search results are limited by the authors' assiduity in their tagging and identification efforts. Further, topics may be misclassified or their appropriate classifications may change over time. Correcting or changing the corresponding tag(s) embedded in the document source code may involve significant time and/or effort.
Online documentation is often stored in smaller units than their hard-copy counterparts. For example, where one hard-copy book may include a dozen top-level topics, the online version may span many files, with each file dedicated to a single second- or third-level topic. This facilitates printing of the online documentation, but the results of a search of the online documentation may include extensive chains of links that a user must follow to find his or her desired information.
Existing methods of producing or presenting electronic or online documentation continue, however, to overwhelm a user with extraneous, irrelevant and/or duplicate information or fail to prevent sufficient information to meet the user's needs.